UP to set up lab to check disease of Dengue

Lucknow, Oct 22: Uttar Pradesh government is likely to set up an Institute of Virology to test the communicable and vector borne disease including Japanese Encephalitis(JE), dengue and chikungunya.

The government is planning to have a full fledged Laboratory similar to that of Pune's National Institute of Virology in the state capital while a supporting one at Gorakhpur.

A high level meeting to initiate the process took place last week at the Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences (SGPGI). The participants included officials from the Department of Medical Education, Department of Communicable and Vector Borne Diseases and the National Insitute of Virology, Pune.

Since the Microbiology Department of SGPGI is the only body in the state for detailed viral testing, great inconvenience was felt recently, as the samples had to be sent to NICD, Delhi and the National Institute of Virology, Pune.

In the meeting, a presentation on the project was made by Dr T N Dhole from Microbiology department of SGPGI and now it will be placed before an expert committee formed by the state government.

According to Dr Dhole. the plan includes setting up periphery units at a cost of Rs 50 lakh each in the epidemic-prone areas.

The cost of the project in Lucknow is expected to be around Rs 500 crore and in Gorakhpur - around Rs 20 crore. The state government in the current financial year has sanctioned Rs three crore to strengthen the Gorakhpur Laboratory.

State Principal Secretary, Medical and Health Arun Kumar Mishra said as it was realised that the SGPGI alone was not able to serve the purpose, the need was felt for separate institute of Virology in the state.

Recently, Jhansi had reported over 10,000 cases of high fever, but only few tested positive for dengue and chikungunya. The bulk of the results from NICD are awaited even after a month of sending the samples.

UNI